Soon, ideal mode share of public transport for passengers of Kolkata and Howrah

Kolkata: The state Transport department is planning to come up with an ideal mode share of the public transport services including buses and cabs that are required daily to cater to the passengers of Kolkata and Howrah. The department has requested IIT Kharagpur to prepare a report on what ideally should be the number of public vehicles that should ply on the city roads on a daily basis so that commuters have a hassle-free travelling experience.

"Our department has launched a number of buses in different routes and will be introducing more buses in the days to come. However, we are finding that some routes are having reasonable passengers while others are not.

Similarly is the case of cabs — both the yellow ones and the app-based ones. The study will enable us to have a scientific roll out of public transports in the city in future," a senior official of the state Transport department said.

The civil engineering department of IIT Kharagpur led by Professor Bhargab Maitra has already started work in this matter.

"Our study will take into account various aspects like the road space in the city, the vehicular pollution, the volume of traffic on important roads in Kolkata and Howrah and accordingly come out with an ideal mode share of public transport like buses and taxis," Maitra said.

According to another professor in the department, the first target in this regard is to have data of how many passengers travel in private vehicles, how many by buses and how many by cabs. "It should be noted that a large number of people in the city also travel on foot to reach their workplaces after coming to Sealdah or Howrah by train from the districts. The state Transport department is providing us with data of public vehicles that are available with them for facilitating us in our work," the professor pointed out. It may be mentioned that the civil engineering department of the premier institute has been working with the state Transport department and the traffic wing of Kolkata Police in a number of projects related to road safety.

Recently, IIT KGP has come up with a manual for the drivers that are being followed at all the motor training institutes in the city.